In a Sunday morning letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling for an emergency parliamentary debate to address the state of Canada’s economy. “You promised you would deliver the fastest-growing economy in the G7. You delivered the only recession in the G7,” wrote the Official Opposition leader. On Friday, a report from Statistics Canada showed...
Former federal MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay has won the race to replace former British Columbia Conservative leader John Rustad on the fourth ballot, beating commentator Caroline Elliott. Findlay won with 51 per cent of the vote, just ahead of Elliott, who finished with 49 per cent. Three other candidates, starting with sitting MLA Peter Milobar, then entrepreneur Yuri Fulmer, and finally...
Former Canadian ambassador to the United States, Kirsten Hillman doesn’t think CUSMA is going anywhere, despite the fast-approaching deadline to review the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement and the rhetoric employed by Trump administration trade officials. “I personally do not believe that the agreement will go away, and (the U.S. trade representative) has said that,” Hillman told CTV Question Period host Vassy Kapelos...
The federal government has ordered a financial audit into transactions and activities at a landmark Indigenous languages office after receiving anonymous complaints. Canadian Heritage didn't elaborate on the allegations against the Office of the Commissioner of Indigenous Languages, an arm's-length office set up five years ago after it was recommended by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s negotiating team is demanding that all North American-made autos contain at least 50 per cent U.S. content, firing the opening salvo in a battle over the future of the pact governing continental trade. American and Mexican negotiators hunkered down in Mexico City this week to start a review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and the U.S. announced...
The Liberals maintain a clear lead in federal voter preferences at 41.1%, ahead of the Conservatives at 32.7%, though the margin has narrowed to single digits, indicating a more competitive environment may be emerging. Other parties remain well behind, with the NDP at 12.6% and smaller shares for the Bloc, Greens and People’s Party. Public attention continues to centre on...
Steven Guilbeault’s breakup with his Liberal government was a long time coming, but the events that set if off were swift. In an interview with my colleague Ryan Tumilty, the former environment minister and soon-to-be ex-MP underlined just how much the Liberals have changed in a matter of months.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s separation referendum is federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s opportunity. If he takes it. Alberta is ground zero for the conservative movement in Canada. It has long asserted a more populist, free market, small government hold on the Conservative Party of Canada, past and present. It has outsized political influence on the direction of the party, given...
$31.2M spent since 2021 upgrading fleet now retiring. Former Snowbird pilots are calling on the government to keep the iconic aerobatic show in the air by scaling back the performance rather than suspending it entirely. The Royal Canadian Air Force recently announced it's pausing the Snowbirds demonstration squadron at the end of the 2026 flying season until new planes arrive...
How do you MAGA - Make America Great Again? According to Mark Carney, the answer is, MCS, Make Canada Strong. That was part of the message the PM gave American business leaders in New York yesterday and guess who was clapping? Pete Hoekstra, one of Donald Trump's leading Canadian critics, is the U.S. ambassador to Canada. It's been quite a...
Canada’s selection as home to the new Defence, Security and Resilience Bank affirms our country’s credibility with its allies and its leadership at a time when defence, security and economic resilience is critical. Nova Scotia was one of the first to raise our hand in support of Canada’s bid.
One word kept coming up this week, as Steven Guilbeault tendered his resignation from a government in which he no longer thought he could do his most important work. The word was “room.” As in: Is there still room on the Liberal benches for an ardent environmentalist? Can the party offer room for pipeline and resource proponents, alongside people animated...
If you’re a patriotic Canadian who believes we need to build up this country as rarely before, Mark Carney wants you to put your own dollars into it. And despite a high degree of skepticism among his friends in the financial world, he’s serious about offering a government-backed guarantee that you’ll get your money back.
News of strain in Canada’s economy comes after more than a year of a trade war with the U.S. — and a day after Prime Minister Mark Carney pitches Canada as a tool to help make America great again. The Pulse Panel weighs in.
When I first went to Ottawa as a member of Parliament, I didn’t go because I believed the system was working. Quite the opposite. Like many Albertans, I was frustrated. Western Canada was too often ignored, our industries were misunderstood and decisions affecting our livelihoods were being made by people who had little understanding of how this country works outside...
Steven Guilbeault is gone, but, oh, the wreckage he leaves behind. No single politician, apart from ex-prime minister Justin Trudeau, did more to create today’s separatist movement in this province. The former environment minister’s extremist climate policies, coupled with massive expansion of federal power, imprinted a fixed belief that Liberal Ottawa despises Alberta and can never be trusted.
I have a pretty good idea what a lot of people think I should say about Alberta’s sovereignty referendum, and I have a good idea of what I actually think. The problem is the two don’t line up very well. What a lot of people think that I (and others like me) should say is, mostly, nothing. As an opinionator...
As Alberta careens toward a bedevilling referendum this fall, Team Canada finds itself in desperate need of a captain. Premier Danielle Smith got us into this mess, so it shouldn’t be her. Provincial NDP leader Naheed Nenshi, an unimpressive adversary of the premier’s thus far, would be an uninspired choice.
The battle for the heart of the UCP is finally on. Premier Danielle Smith’s ministers and MLAs are firing out messages to current and former party members. It’s time to take the UCP back from the fringe separatists. That’s the theme.
The reality is that many Albertans — and not just those already convinced that separation is the only answer — are legitimately frustrated with their province’s status in Canada.
The speech Mark Carney delivered to the Economic Club of New York on Thursday was many things. In the room, it was a stability balm amid a global drama: Canada is the reasonable, rational source of solutions, not problems. “A country that’s predictable, reliable and principled in a world that’s anything but,” Carney said in his summation. As a narrative...
As the Western premiers pulled on Team Canada soccer jerseys at the close of their meeting in Kananaskis on Tuesday, some kind of barbed comment was inevitable. Wab Kinew obliged. “I just want to tell Premier (Danielle) Smith, that she looks great in a Team Canada jersey,” the Manitoba premier said, pointedly. As host of the conference, Smith may have...
Canada will buy the GlobalEye aircraft from Swedish manufacturer Saab, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on Wednesday at the CANSEC defence industry conference in Ottawa. Canadians could be forgiven for having two questions: What does that mean? And also, what does it mean?
Important referendums are usually defeated. But successful or not, they always divide families, communities and nations. The wreckage stems from the high emotion, the purely polemical arguments and, most often, the nasty personal attacks that are part of a referendum circus. Canada, like most advanced democracies, has held very few referendums. In part, that is so because governments don’t like...
Canada has plenty of land, relatively few people, and a housing affordability problem. What’s this got to do with high speed rail? The discussion around housing affordability often stalls out at the conundrum of how to protect the asset values of those who own homes today, while at the same time giving those who want to own a home a...
If our troops are fighting in Latvia, or if Ottawa fails to renew CUSMA, a more North American policy could gain favour with voters
Liberal MP Steven Guilbeault was, for a time, the right man for the moment. That moment was 2019 and a few years that followed, before the worst polarizing effects and economic shockwaves of the COVID pandemic took hold and climate change still rates as a top political concern for Canadians. Guilbeault, a former Greenpeace activist turned Liberal politician, based much...
The horror! The horror! Before the night is over, one side will paint a horrifying picture of an independent Alberta and the other side will speak of shameless fear mongering. The man was ready. He had what he believed was his ace in the hole. He was just waiting for the chance to use it. It didn’t take long.
Premier Danielle Smith was taking heat from other western premiers over separatism Tuesday when an astonishing statement hit the airwaves. The president of the UCP, Rob Smith (no relation), said the governing party will not take a stand on whether Alberta should separate or not. That’s Danielle Smith’s party. The one
Imagine, if you will, an Alberta of endless opportunities. The landscape glistens with a thousand shiny new data centres, each of them furiously mining bitcoin. The Alberta Provincial Police patrol the highways. Go 300km in either direction, and the poor citizens of Canada are living in globalist tyranny. This is Danielle Smith’s Alberta.
If 20% leave turns into 40% for Smith’s “maybe” option - Alberta will have avoided a near term crisis, but saddled itself with the image of a place that is unsettled and unpredictable. Most of the time, referendums result in people deciding to maintain the status quo. In 26 national referendums across 26 countries, questions about maintaining an existing policy...
Outside Alberta, a political consensus is emerging — not just on how the Alberta referendum should turn out, but on whether it should be held at all. That in itself is remarkable, but it does risk driving some further wedges into the national-unity debate that this referendum has set in motion.
Prime Minister John A. Macdonald famously described dealing with provincial leaders as “herding cats.” He was right on the money: like cats, premiers will purr loudly to get what they want but ignore you when it suits them. Or worse, lure you in and scratch you when you least expect it. But MacDonald knew how to cajole them, humour them...
Canadians need to stare down the stark reality of what happened in Alberta this week. Premier Danielle Smith has moved her province closer to separation than it has ever been. This brewing national-unity crisis has not come about from the tyranny of the majority — it has been created by a minority wielding too much power for its size, and...
It's a pivotal day for the British Columbia Conservative Party as the Opposition in the provincial legislature will announce its new leader. The candidates, who had to pay more than $100,000 to join the race, were whittled down to five: former MLA Iain Black, commentator Caroline Elliott, former MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay, current MLA Peter Milobar and entrepreneur Yuri Fulmer.
The federal government is facing increased pressure to state whether it knows how some of its recent policy changes will affect Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin was peppered with questions on the issue at a parliamentary committee hearing on Thursday. Bloc Quebecois MP Patrick Bonin pressed Dabrusin on whether the government had modelling to show how it...
Sharp increase in applications after court required Ottawa to change rules. Thousands of people around the world have received Canadian citizenship certificates as a result of a change late last year to federal law. Half of them Americans, CBC News has learned. In the first three months since the change, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) issued proof of citizenship...
As Guilbeault resigns, McKenna, Wilkinson and 'Katy Perry's boyfriend' in one room. It was the end of an era and the four politicians who were its chief architects gathered in one room in Ottawa. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau and his former climate change cabinet ministers — Catherine McKenna, Jonathan Wilkinson and Steven Guilbeault — on Wednesday were at the...
Willingness to give up production slots shows they're serious about winning: analyst. Both Norway and Germany invoked an all-for-one, one-for-all approach as they this week sharpened their public and private pitches for Canada to select the Type 212CD as the navy's next submarine. Both long-standing NATO allies, the two European powers are now putting more emphasis on what it means...
The number of immigration cases being brought to Federal Court has more than quadrupled since 2020 -- and some immigration lawyers are linking the surge in part to the federal government's use of artificial intelligence and automation to clear visa application backlogs. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada insists that technology is not to blame and that multiple factors are driving...
Thousands of Albertans rallied in communities across the province Friday, voicing concerns about affordability, health care and public services as Alberta’s separation debate continues to dominate political discussion. Organizers with the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) said 20 protests were held in 15 communities, bringing together labour groups, community organizations and residents concerned about a wide range of provincial issues...
The Conservative leader’s office confirmed to the Star that Poilievre is not eligible to cast any votes in Alberta — including the 10 referendum questions that will be posed to electors. Pierre Poilievre, the only federal leader who is an Alberta MP, will not have a direct say in a referendum that could set his home province on a path...
Canadian defence manufacturer Roshel says it is not going to cancel the sale of armoured vehicles to the United States government used by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, despite calls from some opposition MPs to do so. “We never had contracts with ICE. We have contracts with the [U.S.] State Department. We’re not considering, never considered to cancel any of...
OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Mark Carney told Pope Leo XIV on Friday that Canada wants to take a leadership role in the responsible development of artificial intelligence.
ST. JOHN'S -- The Newfoundland and Labrador government has dropped a lawsuit challenging the federal equalization program.
Elections Alberta says a massive hiring effort for the fall referendum on the province's place in Canada will get underway early next month. The agency says 60,000 or more elections officers will be needed to hand count the votes, which provincial law dictates must be done within 48 hours after polling stations close. It says all positions are paid and...
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Canada wants to boost trade with China by 50 per cent in the next four years while protecting its national security interests, as she welcomed her Chinese counterpart to Ottawa. She made no mention on Friday of the fact a Canadian warship transited the Taiwan Strait days before Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s high-stakes...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ambitious spending promises earned standing ovations from Canada’s defense industry this week. Now he faces his next challenge: turning those promises into contracts. “My business depends on it being faster, and jobs and investment depend on it being faster,” Eliot Pence, the founder of Ottawa-based startup Dominion Dynamics, told POLITICO of the procurement process.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says Prime Minister Mark Carney's policies are to blame for Canada entering recession territory. Statistics Canada says the economy contracted slightly for the second quarter in a row to start the year, a benchmark some economists consider a technical recession. Poilievre says there's nothing technical about rising rates of mortgage delinquency, increased food bank usage and...
Drones made in Canada could be headed for the battlefield in Ukraine, thanks to a new corporate partnership between Canadian and Ukrainian drone makers. The defence ministers of Canada and Ukraine signed an agreement to support the co-production of drones on the margins of the CANSEC defence trade show in the nation's capital this week.
The federal government posted a deficit of $55.28 billion for its 2025-26 fiscal year compared with a $43.15-billion deficit a year earlier, according to the Finance Department's monthly fiscal monitor report. The department cautioned the figures were not the final result for the 2025-26 fiscal year, which will include additional end-of-year adjustments and be published in the public accounts for...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s deputy chief of staff is considering a bid for elected office with a run in the Vancouver-area riding that is being vacated by former Liberal natural resources minister Jonathan Wilkinson, two sources say. If Braeden Caley decides to seek the nomination in Mr. Wilkinson’s North Vancouver-Capilano riding, it would create a vacancy at the senior level...
U.S. President Donald Trump says the U.S. blockade on ships travelling through the Strait of Hormuz “will now be lifted.” “Ships caught in the Strait due to our amazing and unprecedented Naval Blockade, which will now be lifted, may start the process of ‘heading home!’ Say HELLO to your wives, husbands, parents, and families from me, your favorite President!” reads...
Statistics Canada says economic growth stalled in the first quarter, leading to a second consecutive decline in real gross domestic product. That meets some definitions for a technical recession, though not all economists weighing in on StatCan's Friday report were convinced the label was necessary. Real gross domestic product by expenditure was essentially unchanged on a quarter-over-quarter basis, StatCan said...
An untold number of Ugandans, Congolese and South Sudanese nationals who were already in Canada when the federal government brought in Ebola virus-related travel restrictions for residents of those three countries have had their visas suspended, CBC News has learned. The move does not kick them out of Canada, but it effectively bars them from international travel because they would...
China's foreign minister Wang Yi is in Ottawa today, the first such visit in a decade. He is in Canada for a three-day trip that will include meetings with Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and Prime Minister Mark Carney. The prime minister visited China in January and met with President Xi Jinping.
After announcing his resignation over the Carney government’s climate policies, Liberal MP Steven Guilbeault said he wouldn’t rule out returning to federal politics under a different prime minister. “I’m certainly not closing the door to future possibilities,” he said when asked if he would return under another prime minister. “It’s been an amazing experience and certainly not one that I...
Employing U.S. President Donald Trump’s marquee slogan, Prime Minister Mark Carney told a New York City business crowd on Thursday that “Canada strong will help make America great again,” a remark the U.S. envoy to this country said was “worth repeating.” Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, the prime minister detailed his economic diversification strategy, and his plans...
The B.C. Conservatives are expected to announce their new leader on Saturday, nearly six months after John Rustad was chased out of office. But the announcement at a leadership convention in Vancouver could also represent a pivotal moment for the governing NDP, which Angus Reid Institute president Shachi Kurl says has suffered a "brutal, bruising" spring session. "It has not...
Central Newfoundland Member of Parliament Clifford Small and his company are being sued for over $353,000 in unpaid restaurant rent and taxes. In recent months, statements of claim have been filed by both the property owner and the City of Mount Pearl. Small’s parliamentary office has declined to comment at this time.
The Manitoba government says it is facing potential legal action over its decision to halt rebates for the electric vehicles produced by automaker Tesla. Premier Wab Kinew says the government has received a notice from Tesla Motors Canada that it intends to seek a judicial review of the decision. Kinew says the government will only consider reversing its decision if...
Alberta's upcoming referendum question on separation was made official Thursday, and it mirrors what Premier Danielle Smith announced last week. Smith and her cabinet issued an order in council confirming the date and format of the Oct. 19 referendum, along with the question. It will ask voters to pick one of two options. Option one reads: "Alberta should remain a...
The Conservatives are calling on the Liberal government to "reject" the CRTC's recent decision tripling streamers' financial contributions. The broadcast regulator said last week large online streaming services must contribute 15 per cent of their Canadian revenues to Canadian content. Conservative MP Rachael Thomas put forward a motion in the House of Commons today calling on cabinet to use its...
Swedish defence firm Saab says if Ottawa chooses to buy its Gripen E fighter jets, Canada could end up making some of the ones destined for Ukraine's air force. Saab says up to 20 of its Gripen jets will be built for Ukraine under a European Union support loan agreement and Sweden will donate 16 older-model Gripens to the war-torn country.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. military said it carried out another strike Saturday on a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing three men in the fourth attack this week and putting the total death toll at 205.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An upcoming celebration of America's 250th anniversary, "The Great American State Fair," recently had several musical guests back out partly over the event's ties to President Donald Trump. Now, Trump himself is slated to headline the festivities, the organizers said Saturday.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Businesses big and small have started receiving tariff refunds after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump lacked the constitutional authority to impose higher import taxes on goods from nearly every other country.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump on Friday gave his endorsement to a January study by the Department of Health and Human Services that calls for cutting the number of vaccines recommended for every American child.
U.S. President Donald Trump says the U.S. blockade on ships travelling through the Strait of Hormuz “will now be lifted.” “Ships caught in the Strait due to our amazing and unprecedented Naval Blockade, which will now be lifted, may start the process of ‘heading home!’ Say HELLO to your wives, husbands, parents, and families from me, your favorite President!” reads...
China's foreign minister Wang Yi is in Ottawa today, the first such visit in a decade. He is in Canada for a three-day trip that will include meetings with Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and Prime Minister Mark Carney. The prime minister visited China in January and met with President Xi Jinping.
Employing U.S. President Donald Trump’s marquee slogan, Prime Minister Mark Carney told a New York City business crowd on Thursday that “Canada strong will help make America great again,” a remark the U.S. envoy to this country said was “worth repeating.” Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, the prime minister detailed his economic diversification strategy, and his plans...
Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump are “constantly” in touch and will meet during the G7 summit in France next month as the review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade deal, or CUSMA, is drawing closer, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said Thursday. The trade deal, which was signed in 2018 and touches virtually all trade between Canada, the U.S...
Carney says Canada and U.S. need a 'new partnership.' Prime Minister Mark Carney told a crowd of New York industry titans and financiers on Thursday that Canada and the U.S. need to pursue a new partnership — a bilateral relationship premised not on how things were done in the past but one where a stronger, more independent Canada can selectively...
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Canada this week is significant. It is the first bilateral visit to Canada by a Chinese foreign minister since June 2016, and the most visible sign yet that the thaw in Canada-China relations that began with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s January visit to Beijing is moving into a more consequential implementation phase. If...
In just over a month, North American governments are expected to decide the future of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). More likely, they will decide how to decide that future. It’s still not clear to anyone, probably U.S. trade negotiators included, how this first six-year review of CUSMA will play out.
Over a century ago, Max Weber observed in Politics as a Vocation that “one can say that three pre-eminent qualities are decisive for the politician: passion, a feeling of responsibility, and a sense of proportion.” Once detached from responsibility and objective judgment, passion becomes a mere sentiment staged as action, a gesture absorbed in itself and blind to the consequences...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
“Despite the ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel which has resulted in thousands of deaths and injuries…Lebanon moved forward with the ban on antipersonnel landmines,” said the Ottawa-based group Mines Action Canada in a statement, celebrating the new addition.
Canada’s privacy laws are supposed to protect ordinary citizens from unwarranted intrusions into their personal lives. But they can also protect pedophiles. Dead pedophiles. Dead pedophiles from America.
If you want to sound wise these days, just blame the crazy state of the world on polarization. If you want to sound really wise, say that fighting polarization needs to be part of the political agenda and be sure to blame social media and Donald Trump (although not necessarily in that order) for the current chaos. Despite it being...
How do you MAGA - Make America Great Again? According to Mark Carney, the answer is, MCS, Make Canada Strong. That was part of the message the PM gave American business leaders in New York yesterday and guess who was clapping? Pete Hoekstra, one of Donald Trump's leading Canadian critics, is the U.S. ambassador to Canada. It's been quite a...
The House is on the ground at the country’s biggest defence and security show, for an in-depth look at Canada’s plan to spend big on the military. Catherine Cullen meets Stephen Fuhr, Secretary of State for Defence Procurement, former Defence Minister Peter MacKay, New Brunswick premier Susan Holt, as well as defence contractors to hear about unmanned fighter jets, AI...
Peter Mazereeuw speaks with Monte Solberg, a former Alberta MP and federal minister, about the Alberta independence movement, why he thinks Albertans should vote to reject a referendum on separation, and what role Prime Minister Mark Carney should play in the campaign to remain.
Military conflicts are easy to start and painfully difficult to end. As Donald Trump's war with Iran enters its fourth month, Jon Allen joins Jeremy Kinsman and Peter Donolo to discuss how a conflict once promised to be short and decisive became a global crisis. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed, energy markets are under pressure and America's allies are...
